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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Gallup: Ron Paul Falling Behind....Alan Keyes?

While I agree that the media has been slow to cover Rep. Ron Paul’s fundraising success -– and I sympathize with his antiwar stance – the notion that the press is missing a true grassroots surge for Paul in the race for president is questionable. A new Gallup Poll out today shows that his support among Republicans nationally has actually dropped in the past month, from a paltry 5% to a pathetic 3%. This is after he did get more press and appeared in most of the TV debates. By the way, that 3% total now ties him with new entrant….the loony Alan Keyes.

Admittedly, Paul is much stronger among independents, but that won't help him in the GOP race, no matter how much money he raises. And do any of the thousands who have donated money to Paul wonder when he will actually start spending a lot of it? He was getting 3% nationally in Gallup back in July, and hasn’t gained an inch since. Anyone else suspect he wants to bank some of it for unspecified future activities -- such as an indy run?

Another surprise in Gallup: Contrary to much media coverage, it suggests that Huckabee has peaked -- his 16% is identical to what he polled two weeks ago. And Rudy not only still tops him with 27% but easily beats him (56%-38%) or Romney (57%-37%) in a one-on-one matchups.

is author of a dozen books (click on covers at right), including the new "THE TUNNELS: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill." He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher. Email: epic1934@aol.com. Twitter: @GregMitch

11 comments:

Anonymous
said...

There are a lot of good reasons for Ron Paul not to get votes, but Rudy Giuliani is NEVER going to be the Republican nominee. Doesn't have a chance.

One thing that concerns me about polls now is that, as I understand it, they are conducted by land-line phone. I haven't had a land line phone in years, and I suspect that I'm not the only person in her or his 30's like that. And while I doubt this makes Ron Paul a sudden front runner, I wonder if he's polling low if his support is younger. I would never vote for the guy, but I grow more suspicious about polls. Has anyone compared polls to results in, say, the 2006 election?

"Admittedly, Paul is much stronger among independents, but that won't help him in the GOP race, no matter how much money he raises"... Actually, to be fair, it might. A lot of his independent supporters are registering as Republicans so they can vote in the primary, while these polls are usually conducted among people who have voted in previous Republican primaries (if I remember correctly).

Ron Paul has exactly zero chance of becoming the Republican nominee. Zero. Giuliani has a better chance. Ron Paul's supporters think they're part of some "revolution" since he's raising tons of cash on the internet. Let's see, who was the last person to do that? Howard Dean (Democratic candidate in 2004, for those of you who don't remember that far back). He had tons of grass-roots support on the internet (isn't that where the term "netroots" came from?), he had lots of cash, he was immensely popular with the non-moderates in his party, and unlike Paul, he polled at or near the top. The DLC torpedoed him, because there was no way the people in charge would allow someone with real ideas and a desire to change things to become the president. Same thing with Ron Paul. If he had half a chance, the RNC would call in the hit squad and sink him.

They're polling people who voted in the 2004 Republican primaries, and this means people who are very pro-Bush, since the 2004 primaries was a formality that was really held as a demonstration of support for the incumbant. This is a small percentage of the Republican base that does not represent those who are disenfranchised with big government Republicans/Democrats and want true small government, individual liberty Republicanism, and are most likely to be Ron Paul suppporters.

--Begin Quote--Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,011 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Dec. 14-16, 2007. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 399 Republicans or Republican leaners, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.--End Quote--

Sounds to me like they called random (maybe) adults, not people who voted before or are likely to vote or even are registered to vote.

Polling of people who voted in the 2004 Republican primary will not reliably predict the result of the 2008 primaries.

I know at least four people personally who have registered Republican to vote for Ron Paul.

In states like New Hampshire, one doesn't even have to decide which primary to vote in until the day of. There are a lot of factors that will play into this race and it should be obvious from the fundraising gap between Paul and other opponents at similar or greater levels of polling support that there's something different going on.

Found your site while researching for a story I'm doing on Alan Keyes.

I don't think Keyes is, as you so "eloquently" put it, "looney."

I do think that he represents true conservativism on the issues facing the nation. Obviously, I'm not talking about the Kool-Aid infused neoconservativism which has ravaged the GOP and caused many conservatives to disengage in disgust. The rest are dissolving into warring factions among the "front runners" for the RNC Presidential nomination.

Unwittingly, in their bid to hold onto power, the GOP is alienating true conservatives and is, so far, impotent to unite the splintering factions still remaining. God help us.

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